


Strawberry Fields Forever

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Baker Dean, College Student Castiel, Dessert & Sweets, Eventual Heads Out of Asses for a Happy Ending, Flirty Castiel, Idiots in Love, Insecure Dean, M/M, Photographer Castiel, Shared POV's, Shy Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 03:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7249909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You did not.”</p><p>Cas pulls the photograph out, shakes it a little, and slides out his bottom lip before showing Dean. “Aww,” he gushes, “look how cute you look.” Dean’s about to protest when Cas does something even more daring. Reaching his arm over the counter, Cas uses his finger to swipe the excess lemon carnage trapped in the pleat where Dean’s mouth meets his chin, and brings it to his mouth to taste. “Mmm, okay, I get it now. May I?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strawberry Fields Forever

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt from a dear friend of mine: 
> 
> dean works in a bakery and cas is a constant customer and one day cas catches dean eating a pastry behind the counter//when cas catches dean, dean should try to wipe whatever's on his face but he accidentally misses a spot so when cas sees the missed spot he wipes it off with his finger and eats it and dean gets blushy

 

In his thirty years of dancing for the puppeteer upstairs, Dean can't recall reading a nutrition label.

He remembers the days with his caramel crew cut hair—crew, of course, meaning every greasy strand on staff during seven years' worth of unpaid overtime for their new boss, puberty, decided to unionize, leaving him with a shock messier than an over-the-pants hand job. His face wasn't any better, his sun-hickeyed skin highlighting his unprepped pimples. If you asked him, despite his mother's quintessential reassurances, he looked like a strawberry. And not a "packed to freshness" Driscoll's strawberry, but the factory squeezed strawberries crammed into a Smucker's jar.

He tells Cas as much, but he doesn't have any of it. Of course he doesn't. The budding dandelions spread like hay fever across Dean's face have long since blown away by clumsy hands and clumsier time, and the fat he told himself was storing for winter has become a vacuum bag tailored specifically to his sweet tooth.

Ten years will change anyone, even—

"-a twinked out Twinkie binger,” says Cas, eyes softening like blueberries on a freshly toasted bruschetta. “You’re still a pretty attractive guy.”

Dean snaps his head back to the slightly cracked oven and opens it a little wider so the heat can smother every thought he’s currently having that’s getting a rise out of him faster than the dough on his pies. “You’re just angling for a bigger slice,” he mumbles, slipping on his mittens.

“You raise a fair point,” Cas replies to Dean’s surprise, leaning against the counter. “However, I also know getting you to smile will sway the votes of my female contemporaries, so…”

Dean can’t help it. By the time he resurfaces with two freshly baked cherry pies, his mouth has stretched without the help of an orange slice, revealing a display of pearly whites typically off-limits to most museumgoers. There’s a flash, and then the picture slowly feeds through the Polaroid.

“That’s a good one,” he comments, and Dean can swear Cas is the one trying to hide behind the big, blocky camera now. “You’re really, uh… natural.”

“Okay, _fine,_ you can have a bigger slice.”

Cas sets the Polaroid down and throws down a dirty smirk that could easily lower Dean’s inspection grade to a B. “Hey, you said it, not me.”

Dean shakes his head, chuckling. Cas has been a regular going on a few months. A full-time student at KCU (humanities major with a special interest in cinematography—his parents are as proud of him as the latest girl on _16 and Pregnant_ ), Cas needed a subject for his Photography class. He thought _Dean’s Sweets_ would be a perfect muse after his cousin Gabe, a frequenter, dragged him into the shop one clearly hungover morning, demanding Dean “fill Cassie’s sloshing carcass with candy corn cookies”. (Honestly, Dean hates the things, and so did most of his customers. But Gabe buys a batch every other day, so who’s he to stop good business?)

In his much soberer state, Cas walked in a few days later, his soft and lightly pressed pink lips and extra gummy smile visible without that accordion-like bush of hair climbing up and around his mouth, and approached him about the project. Dean graciously accepted and offered limited-time on-the-house services, but only partly because of the business he would gain if Cas received national recognition for his piece.

The guy’s _hot._ And Dean’s been in the face of hot for as long as he can remember. Dean’s been a firefighter, a mechanic, and now a baker, and nothing has come close to the heat Cas gives off, from his sex-heavy brown hair to those big, blue eyes and those arms that could wrap around the earth. Not only that, Cas is super sweet (something Dean also knows a lot about in his line of business), charming, funny… Dean will actually be a little sad when he loses interest in his establishment, in _him—_

“Uh, will that be all?” Dean asks after sliding Cas his to-go bag. Cas accepts it with pursed brows.

“I think that’ll do. Unless…”

“Oh no, please don’t tell me you’re considering those candy corn cookies.”

“Oh God no,” Cas replies, chuckling as he winks with the next statement: “I mean, I’d eat them, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t respect me in the morning. I am considering those mini honey cheesecakes, though…”

“Slow your roll, Legally Blonde, unless you have a roll of quarters in your pocket that’re happy to see me—”

“Alright, okay, I’m leaving,” Cas says, throwing his hands up. “See you next Wednesday? Sundown?”

Dean scrunches his face as he wipes down the counter. “That sounds vaguely like a showdown, but yeah,” he replies. Cas walks out at an excruciatingly painful pace, because his ass in _those_ jeans, the ones slashed across the underside of his left cheek like an open, inviting mouth, practically screaming at Dean to just—

God, he’s so screwed.

***

“Holy _Cake Bosses!”_ Cas exclaims as a blast of heat hits him. “What’s happening in here?”

Just a few delicious feet away are two giant wedding cakes, one a three-layer vanilla oozing chocolate frosting, and one chocolate four-layer oozing vanilla frosting. Next to those is a tray of strawberry pastries that look like something you’d have to more than just poke the Pillsbury Dough Boy to create, and next to _those_ are lemon bars sliced in triangles _Uncrustables_ style.

Dean’s currently adding an extra layer of flour on them, which would probably be easier had he decided against pouring half the bag on himself first. He looks up at the sight of Cas and grins that certain way that makes the apple to the left of his tanned and lightly freckled nose pop out and shakes off some of the flour.

Cas laughs, “You really have no idea, do you?”

“What?” Dean asks, face suddenly twisting in horror as he takes off his glove and furiously rubs his teeth, “Oh God, you can see it can’t you? I swear I only had one. At least if my brother asks, that’s what I’ll say—”

“No, no, that’s not what I—wait, your brother?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, running his tongue over his teeth one more time as a blush crosses his face, “it’s his wedding tomorrow morning. I’m just finishing up.”

“Wow. Congratulations there. But… what’s with the two cakes?”

“Our family wanted chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and Jess’s wanted a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, so I just made both. Between you and I, they both sound disgusting.” Dean shrugs, plucking another lemon bar from the tray before taking a savory bite. Cas shifts a little as Dean moans around the dessert. “These are the only thing they could agree on.”

Cas points to the other tray. “What about the strawberry pastries?”

“Oh, those are for me,” Dean replies, the blush on his face spreading to his ears. “Once a fat kid, always a—” Before Dean can finish, Cas whips out the Polaroid from around his neck and snaps a picture of him mid-sentence. Dean’s mouth drops open as he processes as slow as the development of the picture. “You did _not_.”

Cas pulls the photograph out, shakes it a little, and slides out his bottom lip before showing Dean. “Aww,” he gushes, “look how cute you look.” Dean’s about to protest when Cas does something even more daring. Reaching his arm over the counter, Cas uses his finger to swipe the excess lemon carnage trapped in the pleat where Dean’s mouth meets his chin, and brings it to his mouth to taste. “Mmm, okay, I get it now. May I?”

“Huh?” Dean asks, looking positively _baked_ , if Cas says so himself. He takes note of Cas’s camera again and the fact that he’s now moving behind the counter and steps aside. “Oh, uh, yeah, go ahead.”

Cas takes maybe a dozen pictures of the crowded scene before he turns to Dean again, whose face seems to have calmed down a little. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

He must look distressed, because Dean’s emerald eyes pool with concern as he tilts his head. “What’s up?”

Cas takes a deep breath, steeling himself for the inevitable. If only the overwhelming saccharine scent surrounding him could give him powdered courage now. “I… uh, I finished the project last week.”

“Oh... okay, then why—?”

“I like you,” he blurts. “I mean, I fell in love with this shop, but it’s you that’s kept me coming back. You’ve kind of become my muse outside of class.”

Dean opens his mouth a few times and closes it just as quick. Cas’s heart is ticking faster than a microwave oven, ready to go off any second. The bravado is up—any shred of dignity he had is tossed into the oven and set to three fifty. Finally, after what feels like a century, Dean asks, “Can I see it?”

Cas clears his throat of the disappointment lumping there, “Yeah, uh, hold on,” he says, pulling out his phone to show him. Dean’s eyes rake the picture like a jump rope: up, down, up, down, up—“I, uhm, I put all the Polaroids together to make a cupcake. The wrapping is made of pictures of the establishment, the kitchen, the food, things like that, the frosting is the customers I caught off-guard, and the strawberry on top is, uhm…” God, when did oxygen become so scarce? “It’s, uh, all the pictures I’ve taken of you.”

“Why—?”

“Last week, you told me that story of how you thought you looked like a strawberry in your prime, and… I don’t know, I thought, you know…”

“Cas?”

“Yeah?”

Before he can ramble on, Dean’s dragging him in for a slow, partly wet, partly sticky kiss. Cas presses into him, tasting those friggin’ lemon bars Dean loves so much. They really _are_ good, no flattery behind that statement.

Just as he’s about to card his fingers through Dean’s hair, the flash on his Polaroid goes off.

“Cas,” Dean mumbles against his lips, “that have better been a _very_ shiny quarter in your pocket.”

Cas apologizes with another open-mouth kiss.

 

 


End file.
